Meet 100(ish) of Denver's best bands: Part two

From top: Ivory Circle (photo by Chelsey Farnum), Fingers of the Sun (photo by Tammy Shine) and Glowing House (photo by Cameron Parsons)

Your new favorite band is from Denver -- you just have to find it! No small task in a city with thousands of artists and hundreds of venues, we know -- but you can start this weekend at the Westword Music Showcase. More than 140 of our favorite local artists will play sixteen stages around the Golden Triangle neighborhood, and we'll tie the whole thing together with an outdoor main stage featuring a few party-starting out-of-towners, including Diplo and 2 Chainz.

This is our twentieth year putting on the Showcase, and it's a great place to find those new favorites. But it's also just one part of our ongoing effort to introduce you to the best of this city's music. All of the local bands playing the Showcase are also nominees for Westword Music Awards. That list is even more daunting, featuring over 300 bands and artists selected by our expansive nominating committee as the finest Denver has to offer. You can see the full list of nominees and vote for your favorites here.

That list is organized by genre. You can find other introductions elsewhere in this section, including a playlist featuring many of the bands and some advice they have for newcomers to the scene. There will be more this week, including this series, where you'll find over 100 Westword Music Award nominees (those who filled out our survey) in alphabetical order. You can watch a video of each artist in action and read the one thing he/she/they hope you know about the project. If you're interested in what you see or hear, you can click on the name of any artist to go to a website, facebook or bandcamp page where you'll find information on buying music and upcoming shows.

No matter what kind of music you like, there are bands and artists making it right here in Denver. They've got that guitar tone that just sounds right to you, and harmonies that fill your head so perfectly, they must have been built specifically for you.

What's the one thing you wish a prospective new fan knew about your band or project?

"We recorded our latest album "What Is The Life?" at the same recording studio where the Beach Boys recorded "Pet Sounds" and The Mamas and The Papas recorded "California Dreamin'," the energy in the room was unbelievable!"

What's the one thing you wish a prospective new fan knew about your band or project?

"We're here to have a good time. We're not here to take ourselves too seriously, but we're not here to beat around the bush. All of us want this to be a career and we won't stop until we've exhausted every avenue for success. Oh, uh, we play metal."

What's the one thing you wish a prospective new fan knew about your band or project?

"We do this out of necessity, not because we hope or expect to gain something out of it. It keeps us relatively sane. It's the best way we've found to calm the demons screaming inside each one of our skulls."

What's the one thing you wish a prospective new fan knew about your band or project?

"Don't expect to see us play the same show twice. Whether it's on purpose or it's just because a band member is missing, we try to take each show into careful consideration as we continue to evolve as a band, whether it's an acoustic show or a full band show with lights."

What's the one thing you wish a prospective new fan knew about your band or project?

"We've just finished a collaboration with contemporary dance company Wonderbound entitled "A Gothic Folktale," in which we have scored music for a full-length ballet, and we're excited about our upcoming Red Rocks debut as a part of the Film On The Rocks series."

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